Hawke's Bay police are praising digital media as a valuable tool in their efforts to collar those wanted for arrest.
The Bay's current "wanted" list featured 13 people, 12 men and one woman, with police citing a Facebook picture posted of two people involved in emptying a charity collection tin of $60 at a Hastings service station last week as a prime example.
Within hours of the photo of the collection tin thieves being posted in both print and online, the calls and on-site messages began. And the 20- and 28-year-old Auckland men who had headed to the Bay to find seasonal work were arrested the following day.
The current line-up is on the national police site, under the Eastern Region, with those being sought also featuring on the Hawke's Bay Police Facebook page, which Eastern District communications manager Kris McGehan said had been an ongoing success story since being set up last August.
"We have had several people come in since we started it to say 'get me off it'," Ms McGehan said.